Papyri Graecae Magicae

The Demons of Magic

by Morton Smith

I was first asked to talk about demons of magic and the
notion was that I would show slides representing various demonic beings, demons
we find on the magical gems. It occurred to me that you were probably familiar
with them. You certainly would be if you looked at the works placed on the
admirable bibliography that was circulated, especially Bonner's Studies in
Magical Amulets, Chiefly Graeco-Egyptian is to be highly recommended. If you
do look at those you will find that the imagination of the Greco-Near Easterners
of the second century A.D. produced a fantastic population of beings who are
quite unlike ancient near Eastern gods, on the one hand, and even less like the
standard Greek or Roman gods, on the other. As far as iconography goes there was
a flourishing or a remarkable growth of new and fantastic forms. This did not by
any means take care of all the gods that were used in magic. I will come back to
that point presently.

I decided not to deal with this question because I thought,
as I have said, that if you were reading the recommended bibliography or if you
were interested in the purely iconagraphic side of magical invention, you could
easily do that for yourselves. A friend of mine who gave up church history for
history of art told me, "I used to have to read the texts but now I just have to
look at the pictures." For iconagraphic studies you could do that; one picture
is worth a thousand words. Besides that, I was having troubled as I started
preparing for that since the magical gems commonly show the gods that are
invoked, how do you know when something that appears on a magical gem is a god,
and when is it a daimon. Take the rooster-headed angleped, for instance. He is a
rooster from the neck up, and from the neck to the knees he is a Roman soldier
in regular Roman soldier's armor. He grasps a good round Roman shield, and
wields the whip. And from the knees down he is a pair of serpents. An odd
creature. Very widely represented, very often with the name Abrasax, which led
to a belief that he was a representation of Abrasax. But Iao also appears very
often in connection with him. So it was thought too that he was a representation
of Iao. You had your choice, and you could solve the problem by saying that this
was a representation of Abrasax-Iao or Iao-Abrasax, product of syncretism. Then
go on to the remarks of the heresiologists about Abrasax as the demon of the
year whose number is 365, and the god of the highest heaven which has all the
lower heavens below him, and so on. But is he a god or is he a demon?

So I decided that I was facing a new problem, or a problem
that I had not seen adequately studied. And that is what exactly is the usage of
the term daimon, and related terms? What usage does that family of terms have in
magical texts in the Greco-Roman world? That is what I have been looking at for
preparation of this paper. You know of course that the Septuagint has a very
simple and brief answer to that, apantes hoi theoi ton ethnon daimonia, "all the
gods of the gentiles are daimonia" (Septuagint Ps. 95.5). The Hebrew Psalm 96
calls them elilim. To Homer this statement would have been unobjectionable.
Homer knows that gods are daimones and Nock argued this in Classical
Philology 45 (1950):49, with references to many previous discussions.
Daimonia is just the derived adjective from the daimones so that's no problem.
But what is wrong is that the Septuagint didn't intend to make a statement of
fact, that statement is polemic. The reader is intended to understand that,
contrary to Homer, daimones are not gods. Daimones are inferior beings. And the
Septuagint, by saying that all the gods of the gentiles are daimonia, is
degrading them to a class of beings subordinate or inferior to the one true God.

When the Septuagint does this it was not doing something
that was radically new or peculiarly Jewish. The subordination of daimones to
theoi has classical precedents. One thinks immediately of Plato's Apology,
of course. But Plato is by no means the only one nor is he the first. So you are
faced with this fact that in the classical tradition is double. On the one hand,
there is a tradition from Homer on down equating daimon with theos. On the other
hand, there is tradition dating back to the pre-Socratic philosophers
subordinating daimon to theos. The question is, how did the magicians deal with
this problem of second-class supernatural citizens? In the papyri, first of all
you must remember that the bulk of papyri comes from the fourth and fifth
centuries A.D., were written at that time, and certainly contain in some
instances considerably older materials and in some instances contains materials
invented by the writer. The safest thing to conclude is that you have materials
from the fourth to the fifth century, in general. Sometimes one can see what
looks like significant changes but it's hard to be sure. For instance, in the
Great Magical Papyrus of Paris, daimon is used pretty consistently all the way
through until the last couple of hundred lines. Then daimonia comes in and
daimon disappears. It looks as if you had an appendix or at least as if the last
sections of that papyrus were written by someone who was subordinating these
beings to daimon-like beings. Daimonion is a step down--it isn't actually a
pejorative term or anything of this sort, but it is a step down from daimon. And
if this step should occur, then all usage of daimonion in the Great Magical
Papyrus of Paris, at least all those which the index chose to record, come after
the line 3000 and run a few hundred lines. This is a small appendix and that the
adjectival form is absent in the first 3000 lines is significant or seems
significant.

So you can trace or see in some instances things that look
like development but they are not very extensive and they don't enable me at
least to see any consistent development in the body of papyrus material. What
struck me first and hardest on reviewing that material is that daimones play a
comparatively minor part in ancient magic. I expected them to be all over the
place. In fact, when I started to write I said that they would be coextensive:
magic, ancient Greco-Roman magic and daimones. But they are not. The great bulk
of ancient magic, of magic recorded by the papyri, and I should say a good half
of the magic recorded by deifixiones, and all of the magic that appears on the
magical gems is done by gods as far as the writers go. They think and speak of
the beings they are writing about, for the great majority of cases as theoi.
Daimon and daimonion as far as I know never appear on the magical gems at all.
There is one instance, in a gem in Braunschweig (number 186 of the Braunschweig
gems in the big German collection Antike Gemmen) does have something that
is restored or read as daimonion on it. But unfortunately that gem, because of
stylistic grounds, is probably 16th to 17th century A.D. The chance that it is
ancient is quite small. And there are a lot of points against it besides that
use of daimonion.

I haven't examined all of the ancient gems, of course. But
this judgment is based on a concordance of them that was prepared by Mrs.
Francis Schwartz who examined about twenty of the major and minor published
collections and a half dozen standard works on ancient gems. So we can leave the
gems out of the question. The people who made them may have thought that they
were representing daimonia but they never happened to say so, and we can't go
confidently beyond their silence. In the deifixiones you run into another
question, but I'll come back to deifixiones in just a moment.

The papyri give you the fullest description of the daimones
and their place in the world. They refer to them fairly often, as a class of
beings who are intermediate, apparently, between gods and men. They are
supernatural beings, in the sense that they haven't got human physical location
and limitations, but they are subordinate to the gods. They are found in the
air, on the earth, in the waters, and on the sea, and also in the underworld. An
especially important class of them are the demons of the underworld,
particularly the demons of the dead who become daimones after death--apparently
all the dead do, and whenever you have a dead man you have a decidaimon who can
be called up if you have some remains of the body, the proper spells, and so on.
The decidaimon will be particularly effective if the dead man was killed
violently, especially if was executed for a crime, but also if he died young,
particularly if he died before marriage. Those who did not reach their time of
flourishing, and those who died as infants, especially, provide lots of demonic
service for the magicians. All of these daimones for the most part are what you
might call the help, the labor, of the magical world. They are called in to
provide various services for the magician. For example, "Go to a such and such
house and stand next to somebody and take the appearance of the god or demon
that he or she particularly reveres and tell the target person as follows." Then
you give the message you want conveyed. Or "take control of them," usually used
in attempts to get women. "Make her jump out of bed and come to me right away
and pound on the door." "Inflame her with passion. Make her burn." And so forth
and so on. You can also change the gender, but women, on the whole, are easier.
The magical world is predominantly straight, so charms of this sort are usually
for men trying to get women. You can also send out demons to commit murder, or
for all sorts of other purposes, such as to get information. I suppose that if
magic were still going there would be spells like, "Go to my competitor's
computer and read what he has on the following keys." So these, what I might
call lower class help, the helper class of demons, frequently appear in lists,
especially when you are talking about the Great Name. "I have the Great Name at
which the gods prostrate themselves, the demons are terrified, the wild animals
take flight, rivers flow backwards..." and so forth and so on. You can go right
on down. You normally start with the gods, then the demons, then the men or wild
animals, and then other physical phenomenon, such as the seas will calm, and so
forth.

This makes up the great majority of references to daimones
in the Magical Papyri. They vary, but I don't think its worthwhile giving the
figures because they don't tell you much since the papyri are such greatly
different lengths. So the fact that you have four or five papyri in which there
are no references to demons at all is not so impressive as it sounds when you
look at those papyri and find that four of them are of one page only. All of the
longer papyri contain some references to daimones and I imagine that they
average on the whole two or three per hundred lines. This isn't enough to make
them by any means a major concern. They are very apt to be used when you have a
spell for a purpose. You may, in many cases, use demons to carry out the
purpose, but you may not. I think the majority of cases, probably the bulk, well
I'd say a small but substantial majority of cases demons don't function, the
magic is done directly by the power of the name or by knowledge of secret names
or in most cases by the action of the god you call on. And even when there are
demons, in a great majority of cases they function merely as obedient to the
name of the god which you have, or to the commands which are authorizations that
the god has given to you. So the first thing to do is line up the god (go
directly to the provost). Then after that is settled you go, with authorization
from the deity, to the subordinate official, the daimon. And then the daimon
will do as you tell him and he must do as he is told because you have the
authorization of the great god So-and-so whose name you pronounce, and you may
also display his seal and the like.

That makes up the bulk of the magic and demons are not
really very important. Well, at this point I am being challenged by the
communist thinkers about demonology, who'll say it is true that demons provided
the working force of the ancient world but who is to say that the work force of
ancient magic and who is to say that the work force is unimportant. Now they
were the people who did the work, and so on. I leave that argument without
further discussion. This wasn't the way the ancient magicians saw it. They are
strictly social snobs. Their notion is that the gods are important and the
demons are simply there to do what you order them to do once the god has given
you the authorization. It's a world in which the rights of the servant class are
not considered. Those were the good old days.

Besides this, however, there is a very interesting class of
exceptional passages which occur much more rarely but deserve, I think, much
more attention. These are the ones that carry on the old tradition of
identifying the gods as daimones, so that you get a list of names for example:
lord god of gods, king daimon, followed by magical voces. Further on down in 460
in PGM 4, Helios Horus is addressed as "ruler of the world" or "lord of the
world," "daimon of sleepless fire." Not only that but you have references to
high gods who alike subordinate the gods and the daimons. Octiothus, for
instance in 26.2, is "the only tyrant and swift fate of gods and daimones
alike." And Selene is pretty much the same thing in 26.65. What really shows the
seriousness of the problem you are getting into is (I'm still in the Great Paris
Papyrus) in 29.74 are the directions for collecting herbs. An Egyptian when
collecting herbs takes hold of the plant and calls on the daimon to whom the
plant is sacred. This is obviously to the god to whom the plant is sacred, and
they've just been called daimones, and this is shown by what follows. He tells
the plant that it is the heart of Hermes, the eye of the sun, the light of the
moon and so on. So Helios, Selene, Hermes are clearly the gods to whom the plant
is sacred and they've just been called daimones. Not only that, but he tells the
plant that it is the soul of the daimon of Osiris, which (not who [masculine],
but which), was carried everywhere (I think the text is correct, but I don't
know. It certainly is an extremely puzzling passage. ) There are more of them in
the next papyrus, papyrus 5. "I invoke you who created earth and bones and all
flesh and every spirit (whose clearly the high god) conducting all things
according to law, eternal eye, daimon of daimones, god of gods, lord of the
spirits, inerrant aeon, eaoueaouae. I call you because I can, I call you because
I am . . ." and so forth, the magician goes on to declare his magical powers.
And then the god, daimon of daimons, god of gods, lord of the spirits and
inerrant aeon is expected, on the account of who the magician is, to show him
proper respect and do as he is told. This spell, by the way, belongs to
anti-social magic. It will break bonds, it will break fetters, it will make
thieves invisible, send dreams, win favors with ladies and gentlemen and so
forth and so on.

You get into PGM 7 and 8 and you find an interesting spell
which occurs several times: "Spell for demanding a dream from Bes." "I call on
you the headless god who has sight in his feet. You who lightning and thunder .
. ." etcetera. Besides being headless, he is cosmic. "Arise, daimon. You are not
a daimon but theblood of the two hawks on the coffin of Osiris . . ." etcetera.
You go on to what the two hawks are up to and come back. "I conjure you daimon
by your two names: Anouth-anouth. You are the headless god." and so forth,
"Answer me." It's quite clear that the terms "daimon" and "god" are fluctuating
back and forth here as practically equivalent terms. And that the creature we
have in mind, a headless being with eyes on his feet is much like, or like what
would ordinarily be considered a good daimon, then what would ordinarily be
considered a high god. But he is the high god and I think he is the high god
because he is the earth which hasn't got a head, which has a great stretch of
flat land. The shoulders with the neck cut off which wears around itself the
seed as a great serpent out of which the gods and men and other things grow. As
gods, plants and men and the like are shown growing from this headless being
wearing the great serpent around his middle as a loincloth. I'm describing a
lapis lazuli gem in the British museum that shows this very clearly; it is
reasonably well inscribed so you can see these details. There are a number of
other gems showing this headless demon and we also find him in statues. There
are a couple of lead statues from Syracuse showing him with his eyes (in this
case) not on the feet but in the tummy. You have a headless torso with a face on
the navel and there is another to prove that this was not just a Syracusen
peculiarity. You have another statue of the same sort from the neighborhood of
Constantinople. So this earth god is Bes and he also agathos daimon. Bes and
agathos daimon and the headless god are very closely intertwined. That was
easier to do because as you all know agathos daimon is serpentine. Agathos
daimon is a well recognized god, who has well recognized cults in Egypt also
elsewhere in southern Italy and the like.

But you find other gods also being called daimon, and quite
explicitly in Papyrus 7.961. "Come to me invisible pantocrator, creator of the
gods... Come to me invincible daimon Seth...Come to me fire-bright spirit, the
god not to be despised. Daimon and daimon, subdue enslave Miss So-and-So." The
connection of agathos daimon in this sort of passage which is particularly
marked appears again in PGM 12.130f. "And I say also to you because I have . . "
(the magician is telling the deity he is speaking to him) " . . . and I say also
to you daimon of great power go to the household of Miss So-and-So and you obey
me agathos daimon whose power is greatest of the gods. Obey me, go!" There is
another one of these in 13.762, an invocation of agathos daimon: "Whose hidden
name the daimones are terrified, of whom the sun and the moon are the eyes
shining in the eyes of men. He has his good affluences in the stars, daimones
and fortunes and moira..." and so on. I think these suffice to show the problem
that you have here, and I suspect it may be to a considerable extent a literary
problem, in other words, that the early Homeric tradition of daimones as gods,
given the importance of Homer in classical education is living on, side by side,
with the developing and increasingly powerful classification of daimones as
subordinate spirits. And since magic is a matter of ad hoc spells rather than a
systematic thinking, it's not surprising that you get survivals and mixed forms
of these various different lines and stages of earlier thought.

The application of daimon to greater gods is relevantly
limited. Apollo is called a daimon. Agathos daimon of course is one. Selene,
especially when she is being called on to do unpleasant things, and Octinofus,
with whom she is identified, are daimones. The use is occasional. Seth is a
shady deity despite being described as a brilliant god. Here's one more that has
a surprise at the end and shows how this carries on. I don't know whether it is
into Christianity or is taking up things from Christianity. Once again this is a
loosing spell. "... who loose all bonds. Go and loose the iron around so and so
because the great and unspeakable and holy and just and fearful and powerful and
authoritative and terrifying and unneglectable daimon, the great god Zora and
Merabach commands you." And that is the type of thing you've come to expect. But
then "When the bonds are broken, say I thank you lord that the Holy Spirit the
only begotten living one released me. And again say the spell, "God who set the
stars in their places, a string of magical voces, "daimon, deceitful one." And
also the whole name of Helios with a long string of magical voces, which are the
whole name of Helios. So apparently I take it that the mix up of the Holy Spirit
the only begotten would date this prior to the Council of Constantinople, when
the doctrine of the Holy Spirit was put pretty much in final form and separation
from the only begotten was settled. The Spirit was not begotten but preceded.
The Son was begotten and did not precede. How far these doctrinal, even though
they did have imperial power behind them, decisions won acceptance in magical
circles is what we would like to know. If you are mainly interested in breaking
your bonds, having your fetters broken and being able to leave prison without
anyone noticing you, you might not be too sensitive to theological decisions.
But I do think that sufficiently indicates the mix-up of the situation that
confronts us.

I guess I came across one thing that I'll like to call your
attention to. A passage I found was a spell for an oracle in PGM 4.964 which is
addressed to be said before a lamp. It is addressed to the living god, the
invisible begetter of light, and it beseeches him by his strength "to arouse
your daimon and come into this flame and fill it with the divine spirit and show
me your power and let the house be open, the house of the god, be open for me.
The house which is in this light and become a light, breadth, depth, length,
height, brilliance and let that which is inside shine forth, Lord Bouel (Bouel
is good, old Egyptian god who plays a large role in the Demotic papyrus.)" You
can see the auto-suggestion of the magician, "Let the flame be open, ... let me
see the depth, the breadth and the depth ..." and so on. But you notice that if
you start doing this with gestures you find yourself in four dimensions. It is
possible that the magicians with their extraordinary powers anticipated
Einstein. But I am inclined to believe that four dimensional thought is a modern
phenomenon and what you have here is simple, old fashioned rhetoric. In spite of
the fact that it does not make sense when you try and do it, and you find
yourself getting tangled up. What is remarkable is that this appears also in
Ephesians 3:18 with the same four dimensions, not three. "Therefore, I bend my
knees to the father, from whom every paternity is named in heaven and on earth
and whom every fatherland is named in the heavens and on earth in order that the
prayer that he may give to you according to the wealth of His glory and power to
be strengthened through His spirit in the inner man. To make Christ dwell with
faith in your hearts, being rooted in love that is founded in order that you may
have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the
length and the heighth and the depth." That I noticed before and I think I might
have put it in Jesus the Magician, or somewhere in a previous
publication. But what I noticed this time is that this whole passage in
Ephesians is full of parallels to this whole passage in PGM 4.964f. In Ephesians
it starts with a prayer to the Living God, the Begetter of light. a prayer to
the Father, that "...He may give you according to the power of His glory to be
strengthened." In the magical text goes on to say, ". . . Give your strength and
arouse your daimon to be strengthened by his spirit and show me your power."
Ephesians has, "And let the house of the all ruling God be opened to cause
Christ to dwell by means of faith in your hearts in order that you may
understand with all the saints what is the length and depth ..." and so on.
Ephesians says " . . in order that you may be filled with all of the fullness of
God." And the magical text says, "And may the lord Bouel who is within shine
forth." It's clearly not a word for word derivation. These are two
representatives of a single tradition which has the same essential thoughts in
it but has been cast independently in two different sets of words. Nevertheless,
they preserve the same body of topics in roughly the same order. Since this is
done by arousing the god who is entreated to arouse his daimon in order to do
this, I think that makes a fair ending for this talk about daimones.